


Fire and sea

by TheRavenDeer



Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Amputation (not elaborated), Attempt at Humor, Depression, Einar is a highschool teacher, Einar is a saint, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Gudrid and Wide Eyes's relationship is minor and already developed, Gudrid is Einar's badass sister and owns a fancy restaurant, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, If I finish this fic I will cry a lot, Like really slow build, M/M, Mafia AU, Minor Character Death, Revenge, Slow Build, Suicidal Thoughts, Thorfinn is a violent little shit that turns into a hollow and lost manchild, Thorfinn is the son of a mafia boss, Verbal Abuse, What Was I Thinking?, longfic, more or less canon compliant regarding personalities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRavenDeer/pseuds/TheRavenDeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorfinn is the son of a Mafia boss whose group is small but strong. One day one of the enemy groups sets their house on fire and kills everyone except Thorfinn, so he decides to join the group and seek revenge for his family by killing the boss from within. Later on, another violent incident happens and he ends up in Einar's house with nothing to do but feel lost and vulnerable. Its up to Einar to make him learn what life (and love) is about and make him an independent person.</p><p>Or the Vinland Saga sort of modern mafia AU where Thorfinn is part of the mafia and Einar is a highschool teacher. How will they get together?<br/>Really slow build, I'm thinking of up to 30 or so chapters. Updates will be whenever, sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Smoke and blood

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if this story ends up being disorganized and messy. It's my first fic and I thought this fandom needed more attention even if it was a poor addition so here I am. Also english is not my first language but I'll do my best so bear with me pls. The tags will be updating along with the chapters because spoilers and I will probably translate this to spanish and upload it when it ends.
> 
>  
> 
> I had this idea because I thought of Thorfinn while listening to Arsonist's lullaby by Hozier and OH BOY did it hurt :)  
> Just so you know, this fic will have two endings, a sad "I want to die" one and a happy "I want to die" one, for those of us who want both the angst pain and the fluff pain. In the main story there will be NO kisses/sex/etc. I love their relationship and I will try to portray a lot of love between them but just know there will only be hugs, comfort and loving words for them. But I don't discard doing a separate smut fic when I finish...maybe. This chapter is short because it's the introduction but the other chapters will be longer. Well then, here goes.
> 
> All the characters belong to Makoto Yukimura, the author of Vinland Saga.

When I was a child, I heard voices

Some would sing and some would scream

You soon find you have few choices

I learned the voices died with me

 

When I was a child, I'd sit for hours

Staring into open flame

Something in it had a power

Could barely tear my eyes away

 

All you have is your fire

And the place you need to reach

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

 

When I was 16, my senses fooled me

Thought gasoline was on my clothes

I knew that something would always rule me

I knew the scent was mine alone

 

All you have is your fire

And the place you need to reach

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

 

When I was a man I thought it ended

When I knew love's perfect ache

But my peace has always depended

On all the ashes in my wake

 

All you have is your fire

And the place you need to reach

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

 

 

Everything is in flames. Breathing is really painful and all Thorfinn thinks about is escaping from here. He starts to scream for help, to his father, to his mother, to anyone, but no one answers. Something hurts but he can't tell what it is. Suddenly, he hears laughing from outside the house and feels some hope. _They must be all outside the house, waiting for me to get out on my own already._ He gets up with difficulty and finds out that his right leg has a small hole above his knee from where a lot of blood pours out.

“Ah, that's why it hurts so much…” It’s really difficult to think. His mind feels like an overfilled candle, and his thoughts are dripping and scattering like melted wax.

Deciding to follow his resolve to finally get out of the house, he starts slumping out of the smoke-filled corridor and towards the door. He reaches the end of the corridor in no time, only to find almost 30 bodies stretched out in uncomfortable positions and covered in blood on the adjacent rooms. He pauses and looks at them. Then, he scans the bodies and approaches them because he doesn’t get scared. He doesn’t get scared because he recognizes them. All of them are family members or new members of the group. All of them are people who smiled at him or petted his head at some point in time, and now they are all static, cold. Not people anymore, but dead flesh, dead bodies. He can’t take it anymore and throws up in front of one of them. After he wipes his mouth with his hands, he notices the tears that fall from his cheeks and into the floor. _All of them... They left me alone..._ _Wait, not all of them. Dad…. My father isn’t here…_ In that moment, more laughing and shouts are heard from outside and suddenly feeling he might not be alone anymore, he sprints. He runs as well as he can with the bullet wound on his leg, avoiding any of the bodies on the floor, and pushes the door outside open.

A pause.

A thought.

_This can’t be real._

What he finds outside is no better than what was inside and he instantly regrets ever coming out.

There is a circle of men in black suits, all of them with guns in their hands except for one. He has a big bloody machete in one hand and a severed arm in the other. Finally, in the middle of the circle lays his father, missing both of his arms and kneeling painfully in front of this man. Most of the other men were laughing until the moment Thorfinn steps outside, but now they are looking at him with amused and sadistic eyes.  

"Hey kid, How come you're alive?" The man with the machete approaches him slowly while the other men snicker and relax, seeing he's just a kid, while anticipating the fun. "And how come you're stupid enough to come directly to us? Do you want to die that badly, brat?"

Thorfinn feels the air escaping his lungs at the same time the dread starts spreading inside him. He is paralyzed and looks at his father for help but seeing his fathers face, looking at him with an even more horrified expression than the one he has in his own face, just serves to leave him feeling absolutely helpless.

"Pl..ease... don't... I'll do anything...I swear... just not him! Leave him alone!" His father gets up and starts shaking his body until a small sword falls out of his robes to the floor below him. Then, he kneels again until his face is at its level and takes the sword with his mouth, his teeth pressing hard on the blade, making a disgusting sound.

"Hey..look..."

"what the fuck man.. with those injuries... and he still wants to fight the boss? Unbelievable."

Ignoring the other men's comments, Thorfinn's father gets close to the man who hurt him while looking only at Thorfinn's shaking figure.

"I don't want to keep fighting with you, so drop that small knife before I change my mind." The boss takes a step towards him and gets away from the boy. "I won't hurt your kid, but in exchange, you will be left completely naked and do a little dance for us. Oh, and your head needs to roll." He ends the sentence with a smirk as he continues to get closer to the injured man, ignoring Thorfinn's presence.

More laughing bursts from the group of men. 

A minute or two after the boss says that, Thorfinn's father lets the sword fall from his mouth and with all the seriousness his eyes were capable of, looks at the boss and asks "May I know your name?"

At which the boss replies "Just Askeladd is fine, your don't need to know what group we belong to."

"Very well, Askeladd, If you and all your men swear not to lay a finger on my son, I will do what you ask."

"No way... Are you serious? I swear, I swear. Come on, men! You swear too" The incredulity in his voice at the beginning was relaced with cold seriousness.

A chorus of "I swear"'s erupts from the crowd and Thorfinn cannot stay put any longer. The cold of the terror he is feeling being replaced with hot anger.

"NO! Dad... you...can't" Thorfinn pleads with all his might to his father.

"Thorfinn you.. You have to be strong now, okay? This is what it means to be strong. You don't need a sword or a gun to be strong, you don't need to fight. Just be strong for me."

Everything that happens from this moment on is blurred on Thorfinn's mind.

One of the men steps forward to help the man out of his clothes. When he is naked, he begins moving around clumsily and trying to dance. The stumps in his arms are bleeding profussely and the bloodloss soon makes him reach his limit. He doesn't hold out for long before he falls face-first in the muddy grass of the floor. As the man lays there, Askeladd goes down to him and shots him two times in the head.

While all of this happens, not a single person present makes a sound, not even laughs or tasteless insults. Everyone feels overwhelmed by the strengh the man before them displayed. Everyone is still, enraptured in a moment that does not feel real. Everyone except Thorfinn, who drops to the floor besides his father and starts to cry. His screams seem to break the entraced state of the other men and just as they prepare to leave the scene, seeming satisfied with the result, Thorfinn gets up with a sudden movement and glares at them.

"HOW DARE YOU! How dare you kill father! HOW DARE YOU!" He takes the small sword his father left on the floor in his small hands. The weight feels alien to him but he grips it with all the force he can muster. He looks at the men before him with eyes full of hatred and continues screaming. "Now I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'LL KILL YOUUUUU!"

"Holy..."

"He's just a boy, but...Look... Look at his eyes..."

Thorfinn was painfully aware that if even his father didn't have a chance fighting with those men, a twelve year old kid would be far less able to. The pain he feels everywhere only increases when he advances towards the man who shot his father. The injury on his leg keeps bleeding and he can't walk straight. Some part of him feels the pressure of avenging his father, restoring his honor. Some other part of him is aware of what exactly he is doing and why. He is alone now, and he will have to live for the rest of his life with the memory of his father humiliating himself just to save him. _Would it be better to be killed now, and disappear from everything? To leave all of this behind as a bad dream and never wake up again?_ His thoughts are interrupted when Askeladd speaks.

"Look kid, what your father did was really brave, and I will respect his will. I won't touch a hair on your head, so leave it. Scram already." Askeladd wasn't a man of ethics, not with his line of work, but he knew when to recognize a true respectable man when he found one. He liked torturing them, of course, but now that he was dead there was really no reason to continue to do so.

That is when Thorfinn makes the resolution in his head. To kill this man will be his purpose in life, the engine that fuels his desire to live. Until he kills this man, he can't die. With the mission of killing this man, his life will continue on and his father won't have sacrificed anything for nothing. _But where can I go to? I need to learn how to fight if I want to defeat him..._

When he is a just a step behind Askeladd, he finally gathers the courage to get it out.

"Let me join your group."


	2. Trapped and Defeated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse on Thorfinn's life, an unexpected incident and an even more unexpected encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY  
> That's all I can say because I really have no excuses for the super late udate. I tried to make it up to you by transforming into one chapter what was going to be two long chapters. So this chapter settles all the background of the story, and the next one will aready be Thorfinn and Einar's domestic adventures and shenanigans.  
> please  
> forgive  
> (this chapter is /long/. other chapters will be long but not as long as this one) Also please read the tags if you have triggers. Stay safe!  
> ok, here we go

_When the fires, when the fires have surrounded you_

_And the hounds of hell coming after you_

_I've got blood, I've got blood on my name_

_[…]_

_Watching the fires rise under my skin_

_Down to the bone_

_Nowhere to run_

_Nowhere to run_

_Nowhere to run_

 

 

7 years later…

 

The soft clinking of metal accompanies the small and quiet figure of Thorfinn when he steps onto the balcony. His knifes are safely trapped to his thighs, but a sudden movement can make them tinkle a little, and that’s always the only sound he makes while working. The apartment seemed abandoned at first glance but now that he’s looking inside it, he can see traces of cigarette butts and beer cans on the floor. He is sure of it now, his target has been hiding right here for the past two days he’s been missing. He must have known the group was coming after him and thought he could outsmart them by hiding in this place.

His target this time was a man around his fifties, a drug dealer without family or friends that survived in this city by selling material far cheaper than what Askeladd’s group sold, inside their turf. His secret was that he mixed most drugs with either chalk or flour, and then turned them into crack. Askeladd asked Thorfinn to make this man into an example, so as to warn whoever would think of taking the man’s place to think twice. Thorfinn would feel sorry for him, if it wasn’t for the fact that he hasn’t felt practically anything since he was 12 years old. His only two moods now were “furious” and “numb” and the raging emotion was only present when he had a chance to attack the boss. That was how Thorfinn lived this last seven years; taking his boss’s orders like a doll and making use of every chance he got near him to take out his small sword, only to be defeated immediately by Askeladd’s secondhand man, Bjorn. Not that he is still that weak child; now, he can take people bigger and physically stronger than him without breaking a sweat. Living with a group full of sadist, cold-blooded murderers and abusers meant being on your guard 24 hours a day. Thanks to that environment, his objective of becoming strong was met, albeit his objective of murdering the boss proved infinitely more difficult than what he thought at first. Seven years later and he was as close to ending Askeladd’s life as he was to meeting the spirit of his death father rpojecting on a group of clouds in the sky.

Suddenly, someone opens the door of the room and it becomes illuminated with the more orange than white light of the hallway. _So much for being an abandoned building if the lights still work._ The man that comes out of the door opening is actually the target. He enters the room and settles on the floor, pulling a stack of bills of one of his pockets, and starts counting them. Thorfinn doesn’t wait any longer and breaks the window of the balcony with one of his daggers in a single fast motion. Making an example out of someone means doing indescribable things to their body while they are alive and only leaving their face mostly intact for recognition purposes. Despite being an experienced assassin, Thorfinn doesn’t actually enjoy torture, so he always kills the target first, in a way that won’t be noticeable. This time he approaches the man in front of him like a silent predator and injects him quickly with an overdose of barbiturate. The drugs act fast and the man is dead in a few minutes without noticing anything. When Thorfinn is sure the man is dead and there is no trace of a needle wound in sight, he begins with the torture.

First, he takes out all of his nails and stabs them in his now blank eyes. Then, he makes a big collection of cuts along his arms and legs and collects the cigarette ashes on the floor, dropping them in the open wounds. Finally, he completely opens his feet using his dagger from between his toes to the ankles. His methods are controlled and careful. He’s now an expert on how the human body works and how to make a person crumble from intense pain. He’s used to causing the most damage possible and so he does, almost routinely. He finishes by splashing the body with a mix of pure alcohol and vinegar and gets up. The only thing left is to leave the body outside in front of the old building and he can get back to the house. He is not looking forward to returning, preferring the company of the lifeless mess he created instead, but there is nothing else in his life, not a second choice. His unkempt hair moves with the wind while he cleans his daggers dragging them on the corpse’s clothes. Again, he feels nothing, just a job done. He is not scared of killing now or of the group’s people either. Instead, he’s scared of failing, of his murder count having being for nothing in the end; of dying without having accomplished anything. So, he fights, he tramples, he kills, he tortures, he hides, he eats, he works. He is capable of anything if it means he gets to live another day. He does not regret, he does not cry, he does not laugh and he barely sleeps. He lives, everyday, but he also doesn’t.

After the job is done, he returns to the house by foot, walking in the left side of the street. It takes him an hour and a half but he arrives at the front door and enters, knowing the door is never locked.

“You’re early… your target; did he not fight back or something?”

Bjorn, Askeladd’s second in command approaches Thorfinn with confidence and authority. This does not intimidate him in the slightest, unlike in the past, and instead Thorfinn ignores him and continues walking to the elevator.

“Ignoring everyone as always… You have no respect. Maybe we should restart your training and teach you some manners.” He says with an easy smile on his lips. He knows how to provoke hostility on Thorfinn, or knew how, before. When Thorfinn was still a child, his anger only earned him more bruises and humiliation. Lashing out at his superiors was the perfect excuse for any kind of violence or abuse, and he was just a mostly defenseless weak kid at that time. Now, unlike back then, Thorfinn was strong, both mentally and physically, and he learned how to avoid problems and how to solve the unavoidable ones fast.  Or that was how he thought of himself, anyway.

“I am sure if your pitiful father would see you now he would despise your insolent personality too.”

And there goes his calm and collected demeanor.

The boy unleashes his short sword just as the elevator’s door opens with a “ding” sound and flips it into position while he prepares to attack the man now in front of him. But, like all the previous attempts at this man, he fails. He manages to slice his arm a little before Bjorn kicks him in his right leg. Thorfinn tries to dodge his next attack but ends up on the floor and Bjorn takes advantage and kicks him again, this time on his unprotected stomach. Thorfinn’s vision sways a little and the pain makes him shed some involuntary tears. Without warning, Bjorn kicks him one last time in the head and Thorfinn loses consciousness instantly. The last thing he hears is the faint “dammit” of Bjorn when he grabs Thorfinn from the arm and drags his unmoving form towards the elevator.

 

…

 

“-ow he is.”

“‘That’s just how he is?’ is that your excuse for his impertinence? Because I am sure if it were one of my men instead he would have been brutally killed by now, or at least kicked out of the group.”

“Yes, but not one of your many goons is half as capable and useful as him. He has the potential of going up within the group. I wouldn’t put it past him to succeed in finally beating you one of these days.”

“Please don’t joke about things like that, boss.”

“Well then, stop questioning my decisions like I’m a teenager blinded by first love or something. You know the only thing I love is my beautiful babe”

Askeladd takes out his machete and swings it around a little before making kissy faces at it, to further prove his point. Bjorn makes an exasperated sound combined with a disgusted expression and adds “His only ambition is to gouge out your eyes with his daggers. I don’t think it wise to let him wander around like the privileged brat he is anymore. He attacked me and the only thing you do is confine him for a week? The older members are starting to doubt your leadership…”

“Are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you questioning my leadership Bjorn?”

“Hmm, but you already know the answer to that, sir. I vowed my life to you many years ago, and I stand by the same vows now. I follow you wherever you go.”

“Sappy as fuck, but alright. Case closed.”

A soft chuckle reaches Thorfinn’s ears, but he remains still, listening while controlling his breath.

“I’m going to tell you something, Bjorn, ‘cause I trust you. You’ll be thinking I’m definitely mad or losing my mind but… I’m thinking of making Thorfinn the successor of the group.”

A moment that feels like a year passes in silence before Bjorn reacts.

“For a moment there, I thought you weren’t joking.”

“I wasn’t.”

He takes a deep breath before he says “First of all, boss, he made it clear that he wants nothing more than to kill you and maybe the rest of the group if he feels like it, he hates the mafia. Second of all, every man or woman in the group either despise him or completely ignore him; the group would be disbanded before being led by him.”

“You make good points. Here are mine: First of all, I am the boss and nobody influences my decision, no one, except maybe alcohol. Second of all, Thorfinn has all the good qualities a boss needs, if you just ignore his personality: He’s strong, he’s precise, he doesn’t have unnecessary feelings or attachments, he can intimidate people if he wants, etc, etc…”

“So you are serious about this…”

“I’m not saying he’ll become boss right away, he’s still just a kid, but maybe in 10 or so years… you know, he could mature a little, abandon his stupid avenger mentality, and become a bloodthirsty motherfucker who kicks ass for the group.”

“Hmm… So what you are saying is ‘let him do whatever he wants until he realizes the only path he has left is investing himself in the group?’… This will be interesting indeed. I just hope the rest of the group doesn’t hear about this or there will be chaos.”

“Chaos is a beautiful temptation but you’re right. Let’s keep this under our skirts. And about Thorfinn’s punishment, I just wanna let him cool a little inside the cell; He did a damn good job with the druggie, shivered a little just seeing the pictures.”

“How did you see pictures of the body this fast? He just did it early this morning.”

“Smartphones are a blessing. I have my contacts.”

“… Fine, let’s go, we still have to discuss the deal with the Gaviota Company and Thorfinn is not going to wake up anytime soon.”

Thorfinn opens his eyes just as the two men leave and groans as he tries to get up. He is lying on the floor of one of the basement’s cells. His body feels sore in various places and he’s still a bit lightheaded. He remembers the stupid fight with Bjorn that he could have easily avoided but he doesn’t dwell on that. It’s not important at the moment. Nor is it the conversation he just overheard. The important thing is that getting out of here is impossible without outside help. He has experienced being in this cell a number of times by now and he is positive that he has no choice but to wait there until someone comes to free him. Finally he gets up and positions his back against the wall of the cell. It will be a long day.

 

…

_/Somewhere in the city/ - POV change_

 

The mission is simple, go in, scare the shit outta the big boss, he pisses himself and promises not to interfere with the group’s plans ever again, and we get back to the house, mission done. Simple.

Turns out the big boss is easily the weakest CEO in the city. He’s the owner of the Gaviota Company, which sells all kinds of weapons to foreign countries. All is good until they start selling defective or cheap weapons to street punks, and then those street punks think that being armed means they can confront the group, just like that. They feel empowered by the weapons and try to defy the group’s control of the streets. Most of the time, they end up killed by the group’s members and that’s that, but sometimes they manage to kill someone from the group or create trouble in places protected by them like the small casino or the many whorehouses and clubs under the group’s management. It becomes easier to stop the weapon market altogether than to confiscate one by one the weapons from the many small gangs on the place.

The mission is simple. We enter the main building dressed like fucking impeccable businessmen. The people there think we are investors or some shit. I don’t do the talking but my partner is good with intellectual things like that. We cross the corridors and ride the elevator without a problem and get to the main office in record time. The boss is there and he doesn’t suspect a thing. My partner is good with talking but I’m good with my fists, like, really good.

The mission is simple. We intimidate him first with threats. Real crude ones like ‘we're going to cut your dick and put it inside your 4 year old son’s mouth if you continue this business’. Then I slip in some good punches to his gut and one kick to his butt, just because. The guy is so weak I can’t believe it’s one of the owners of the weapon industry in the country. He starts crying and wailing like a dog, his knees on the floor. My partner says we’re done and we exit the place after changing our clothes. We’re now wearing cleaning staff clothes and we leave the building same as we entered, from the front door. Nobody stops us or anything and the mission is done. The mission really was simple. I laugh at my partner because she looks like the typical cleaning lady what with her olive skin, hair a messy bun and bag full of cleaning supplies, plus the uniform. She punches me hard in the face, nearly dislocating my jaw and calls me a ‘racist pig fetus’ and also ‘disgusting excuse of a person’. I apologize the best I can, because holy shit, and then we leave the place and get back to the group. The mission is done.

 

…

_/Inside the Gaviota Company’s building, basement room/ - POV change_

 

“THEY MOCKED ME, HUMILIATED ME AND LAUGHED AT ME. THEY HAVE TO PAY.”

“Sigurd, sir, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to antagonize one of the most powerful groups on the cit-”

“SILENCE! They have to pay, they will pay. They dared threaten me in my own building! I KNOW! Just call those people! The soldiers... I don’t know what they were but they were strong right? They can kill all of the stupid members of that band right? I'm so smart. I'm amazed at my incredible quick thinking... Are you listening? Call them right now.”

“But sir, they are mercenaries… Do you plan on bringing war to this city? The citizens, the media… the government… everyone will know and condemn us. We’ll lose everything. Isn’t it better to just… stop selling weapons here? We don’t make a large profit of that anywa-“

“THIS ISN’T A QUESTION ABOUT PROFIT! It is a question about my honor, you imbecile. They humiliated me, I would be disappointing my dead father if I wouldn’t retaliate and avenge myself accordingly. I remember that time when my father went to a country on war and took that group with him for protection. They were good and I want them to protect me now. I’ll pay them whatever they want. I’ll even lend them my best weapons, so just call them.”

“… Understood, sir.”

 

…

_/Back to the group’s house/ - Thorfinn’s POV_

 

It’s been more than 7 hours and nobody has checked on Thorfinn since the first time he woke up. He doesn’t exactly know how much time passed, but he’s pretty sure it’s around 7 hours now. He’s starting to get dehydrated and hungry, plus his body is still sore, but he’s used to it so he doesn’t think about it. Many times in the past were spent trapped in small places for a long time, wether it was for spying work or for punishment. When he was alone, he used to be unable to stop the negative thoughts and dark memories from resurfacing. The images of that night repeated behind his eyelids like a twisted mantra. Now, he knows those memories by heart, but it’s like watching a movie. He sees them from an outside perspective, detached from it. They don’t bring up hard feelings any more than a bad soap opera would. He sits on the floor, legs crossed, with nothing better to do than make little marks on the floor with one of his knives. By now, almost half of the cell’s floor is covered in marks. At first they confiscated his daggers when they locked him, but in the end it became easier to just leave him with them. After all, there was little Thorfinn could do with them, they are useless for escaping. And anyway, soon enough someone will come and finally get him ou-

“Hey!  I found some kind of basement!”

“What?”

“It’s down here!”

“Are you sure? I thought we killed every one of them already but maybe some of them are hiding there…  Fine, we’ll just take a look there and see. Snake and I will go there, you and Gardar work on cleaning all the bodies.”

“Got it, Hild, we’ll be waiting upstairs.”

Thorfinn’s mind has gone blank. His body instinctively adopted a defensive stance after hearing the voices of strangers but his mind still has to catch with it. The sounds of nearby footsteps finally put his gears in motion and he starts remembering exactly what he heard. ‘Killed every one of them’ was clearly the important part. _Who were those people? What do they mean by killing everyone? It couldn’t be true; at least, they couldn’t have killed Askeladd or Bjorn… right?_ Thorfinn’s thoughts are interrupted by two people entering the basement.

“Hmmm… seems like nobody was here after all.”

“Silence, they could have heard us and hidden somewhere, just start looking. Our client specifically asked for the mission to be total annihilation, no survivors.”

“Sheesh… I understand Hild, don’t be such a workaholic. After defeating that crazy boss-guy, any remaining member of this group would be a piece of cake.”

“If you understand then concentrate on the task at han- wait, are those cells?”

“They sure seem like it… Stay here, I’ll go look.”

At this point Thorfinn’s mind was at a standby state. ‘This couldn’t be happening’ was going over inside his head without pause. He is no idiot and he understands that a) Somehow everyone was killed b) he will be next. If even Askeladd was killed, someone Thorfinn was never even close to defeating, these people, soldiers, mercenaries, rival gang or whatever, were out of his league. He was going to die and he could do nothing to prevent it. _Wait, no, that’s not right… there’s something more important I’m missing…something… that, Askeladd is dead. Askeladd is dead and I wasn’t the murderer. I wasn’t even there watching it happen. I was peacefully sitting on this cell, not thinking about anything, and suddenly the object of my revenge, no, the reason I’m still alive, is dead, somewhere out there where I can’t reach._ All he did ever since he joined Askeladd’s group, which he justified by making it necessary for his revenge, was for nothing. All those lives he took, his reason to live, everything, was taken away in one day by these people. _These people… who took everything for me… why… for what reason…there is no way… yeah, no way._ Thorfinn can’t take it anymore and gets up, clenches his fits on the cell’s bars and starts shouting, rage and confusion consuming his mind.

“YOU’RE LYING!”

“WHAT THE FUCK! THAT SCARED ME, YOU FUCKER! WHO’S THERE?”

Snake approaches the cell where the shout came from and sees the figure of Thorfinn, small and angry and desperate against the entrance of his cell. At first he is confused. _What is a kid doing down here? He’s clearly a prisoner but he doesn’t feel one bit like one. He feels more like a killer than most of the men we cut down today._

“YOU LIED!” He shouts again, his eyes are the perfect mix of hostility and agitation, like a cornered Chihuahua in a dog fight.

“Hild… come here. There’s a kid in one of the cells. Well, he looks like a kid but I have the feeling I shouldn’t underestimate him.” And looking directly at Thorfinn he says “And what do you mean by ‘you lied’? Who are you?”

Hild immediately gets in front of the cell, next to snake, and makes the impression she’s going to say something when she suddenly stops. Something in her eyes changes when she sees Thorfinn, a specter of recognition flashing behind them.

Thorfinn doesn’t notice it and continues with his shouts. “YOUD DIDN’T KILL HIM! IT’S A LIE! YOU CAN’T KILL ASKELADD!”

Snake, amused by what he thinks is a portrayal of loyalty towards the kid’s boss, answers with a smirk “And why is that?”

“BECAUSE HE’S MINE-“ Thorfinn gets interrupted by Hild, who is gradually and slowly moving closer to him, narrowing her eyes.

“…Thorfinn? Is- Is that you?”

The surprise in her voice is followed by Snake turning hastily towards Hild with a curious and faint alarm in his face, and Thorfinn looking like a deer caught by the bright lights of an oncoming truck in the road.

“Wh-what? How… How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“Who am I… Don’t you remember me? I’m Hild, your aunt Hild. Your father was my older brother.” By this point Thorfinn stops breathing, feeling a bit faint, “I can’t believe you’re alive… You survived. Where were you all this time? I thought… I was the only family member who survived because I was in the army at the time, but you were alive… What are you doing here?” And now Thorfinn’s breathing starts again at a fast pace, erratic, panicked. “Don’t tell me… you wanted revenge? Is that why you’re here?”

“Wait so… this kid is your nephew, who you thought was dead, and is now in this cell, armed with two daggers and looking like he could kill a bear.” Snake pulls out one of his guns and points it at the cell. “Get back.” And just like that, fires at the lock in the cell, destroying it and opening the gate. “Okay, you’re free now.”

Thorfinn stays inside the cell. His mind is in turmoil, his ideas whirling around like strawberry seeds inside a mixer making smoothies. He is thinking about his dad again, and everything hurts. His father is dead and Thorfinn is alive, so Thorfinn has to be the one who bears the suffering and pain. Dead people don’t feel. Survivors are the ones who suffer the consequences. But Thorfinn lives, because he has a duty: Avenge his father. Nothing else matters, but now these people are saying that they killed Askeladd? It has to be a lie.

“Did you really kill Askeladd?” He asks, unsure how to adapt to this new situation where everything seems unreal.

“Yes, yes we did, Thorfinn. Now you don’t have to worry about revenge anymore. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me, but now you’re safe, I’ll take care of you.”

“But then why… why did I spend all this years working for him… killing people night and day… all for the sake of avenging father… what do I do now…”

Snake still feels a bit in danger when watching Thorfinn, his instincts kicking in when he needs. So he stands besides Hild, with his gun still in hand, expectant, and so, the kid’s confession makes perfect sense to him. _This boy is dangerous Hild… He was working for them, we have to kill him._ He's already analyzing methods of killing Thorfinn, preparing himself, but then Hild speaks.

“Thorfinn, what do you mean, working for him? You are not telling me you were working under this psycho who murdered our family all these years you were gone, right? I must’ve heard you wrong.”

Without hesitation, Thorfinn nods. It's the same as last time, when the situation he was in seemed hopeless, without escape, without a plausible exit, he just unconsciously walked towards the edge of the cliff. Just like when his father was killed, and he was in front of those horrible men, he takes the same self-destructive action now, the one that leaves him with the possibility of dying. He craves it, with Askeladd dead, the release. There is no reason for him to live anymore, so it’s better to take the suicidal path and ignore the survival instincts telling him to deceive his way out of this mess. Without hesitation, he unleashes his daggers, personalizing his desperation and anger into Snake and Hild. Without hesitation, he attacks.

The next minutes become a blur of movements. One moment Thorfinn is launching himself at Hild, and the next he has a bullet inside the left side of his abdomen. He falls to the floor but quickly recovers and kicks at Snake’s legs. Snake jumps in time and kicks Thorfinn in the stomach, just at the place of the bullet wound, leaving him thrashing and gasping for air because of the pain, before losing consciousness, again. During all this, Hild just stands there, paralyzed by the fury and deadly look in Thorfinn’s eyes when he jumped at her. A sight the complete opposite of how he remembered Thorfinn when he was twelve: always with a big smile missing more than one tooth, caring, a little violent but really brave and reckless. She crouches down next to Thorfinn and lifts him in her arms easily, what with him being a malnourished and small creature.

“What are you doing Hild? We have to kill him. If you don’t want to do it, I can. Just get upstairs and forget about him.”

“I won’t, Snake. I couldn’t protect anyone back then, I abandoned them, but I won’t abandon him. He gave me a second chance to protect my family.”

“Hild…”

But Hild was having none of that, and she runs upstairs with the bundle in her arms bouncing a little with each step, Snake following close behind, shaking his head. When they reach the front of the house, where the rest of the team is waiting, first they receive curious looks, and then confused ones after they notice the bleeding on the side of the boy, then angered ones directed at Snake, who is still holding the gun in his hand.

“Who’s that kid? Why did you shoot him?”

“He's one of the members, probably a spy or something, but Hild knows him.”

“SNAKE!”

“I won’t lie and endanger our comrades, Hild, I’m sorry.”

“I can explain…” Hild was now holding Thorfinn’s body more fiercely against her body, shielding him.

Then, Gardar appeared, his wild nature showing in his eyes. “Hild, you know the rules, you know how we work. Leave the kid; he’ll probably die right away with the blood loss so I won’t ask you to kill him. He can’t come with us.”

“Why can’t I –“

“HILD, IT’S AN ORDER.”

“Fine... but can I at least leave him somewhere else? Where he won’t be associated with the group and he’ll be identified and buried with his family instead? It’s… the least I can do.”

“That’s fine, you” he said, pointing at a random soldier, “go with her to make sure she doesn’t try to help him and then both of you have to come back to our temporary base, understood?”

A double “yes, sir” later, Hild leaves Thorfinn’s body on an alleyway near the center of the city, far behind the group's house. He’s still alive but he has gone cold already so he won’t suffer much longer, and being near the center of the city means that they will find his body soon, before he rots away. Both Hild and the other guy leave within a minute, making sure no one saw or followed them, without looking back once.

 

 ...

 

Thorfinn lays there unconscious for about 20 minutes before he feels a warm hand on his left bicep, a delicate touch, almost afraid.

“oh my god… please don’t be dead…”

Because of the proximity of the voice, Thorfinn startles awake and grabs the hand touching him with the force of a… an average-sized dog, not really a lot of force because he’s getting weaker at the same rhythm he loses blood.

“Don’t worry kid, I’ll save you, oh my sweet Jesus… I’ll… call an ambulance right now, just wait here, not like you can go anywhere in your stat- what am I even talking about, okay, breath, stay with me kid.”

“N-no… no, no….” Is the only thing he can muster before fainting again.

 

Einar hasn’t panicked as much as he was doing now, ever. There was a teenager, bleeding and also probably dying, in the alleyway behind his apartment, but that was not the most important part. The most important part was that the aforementioned boy refused an ambulance, and now that he was taking a better look, the wound was clearly a bullet wound and the kid had twin daggers in his hips, never a good sign. If they asked him now, he wouldn’t be able to answer just why he rejected calling the hospital, or the police, in favor of taking this kid to his apartment and trying to save him alone. He himself didn’t know what the heck he was doing the entire time from when he scooped up the injured teenager into his arms to the time when he deposited him on the bed of his guest room and proceeded to treat him, his advanced first aid course’s knowledge resurfacing. After he was finished, making sure the bullet was no longer inside him and that he wasn’t bleeding anymore, he sat on a chair besides the bed. He was looking at the supposed teen, at all of his injuries, assuming he must be either a case of domestic abuse, or of an abandonment that led him into joining a gang. Either way, he was going to protect him now. The reason he became a teacher in the first place was so that he could help children and teenagers into leading comfortable lives and not suffering abuse in any way. Taking this suspicious injured teenager in his home was kind of his duty, and he was prepared to deal with the consequences, whatever they were. While looking at the kid’s face, he felt a spark of something, some new and foreign feeling, like he just heard the beginning of a prophecy taking place, the hands of destiny making a move, and he was a witness to its magic scheme.

“You are more than what you seem at a first glance, aren’t you? I have the feeling that our encounter was programmed or something", a laugh, " yeah right…” He gently touched Thorfinn’s cheek and noticed that he was more warm now. “You’re safe now, sleep. “

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I understand if you think there is a lack of explanantions here, or that the action goes too fast and is too superficially written, and for that I apologize. I seriously just wanted to update as soon as possible and get the story to the point, so there. If you want me to add some tags or see some big /mistakes/ just let me know on the comments. I also appreciate feedback on my writing very much. Hope you enjoyed and are eager for more of this!! >  
> thanks for reading!!!!!


	3. Hot and Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorfinn wakes up in an unfamiliar place. A lot of talk about food. Someone hates baths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so,  
> First, I would apologize again for the late delivery of the new chapter, but I'm sensing that this is going to happen more than once, because I'm a mess. So I'm just going to warn you beforehand not to expect quick updates from me anymore. I'm not really a writer, so I struggle a bit even if I spend hours with Word open. I'll go with my rhythm if that's okay with you. So, sorry.  
> Secondly, A BIG TRIGGER WARNING FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY (A PUPPY, not going into detail) So if that makes you uncomfortable, you can skip from "-hope growing inside him" to "-he awakens with a start." I hope this helps you. Also, the italics are flashbacks/dreams.  
> This chapter is long, but then, so is the time I left you hanging.  
> Again, thank you for reading. Here goes...

 

Take all my oxygen, take my lungs and my insides,  
and find all of my teeth, you can have them too.  
'Cause the only words I've spoken  
are to get me back to bed,  
and my hands can't seem to hold on to anyone.  
And if I close my eyelids for a moment, I can rest.  
But am I listening for my heartbeat; is there something in my chest?  
  
But I don't think so,  
and I don't think at all.  
And I don't know you,  
but I don't know anyone.

...

Sweet thing, your eyes are too tired.  
Believe me, you don't want to see the world;  
the world outside.  
I could take your picture now,  
or I could leave you out and we could stay right here.  
We could paint our picture now,  
or we could turn it into something else right here.

 

 

Hot and Cold

 

 

 

  _His insides are hurting. He’s cold and his protruding bones are pressed against the hard floor, causing him mild pain all over his body. He had never been this hungry, and now he found that just the pain in his stomach, after three days of not eating anything, could easily kill him, if he didn’t die of hunger before that._

_“Why don’t you go away already? We spared you so you could go away, you know?” A man with greasy hair and a goatee leans down to have eye contact with Thorfinn and then shoves him again. How many times made this now? He can’t understand why the man thinks this is going to work eventually. Shoving him around until Thorfinn gets up from the floor in front of the door and goes somewhere else? He made his mind about this. He would do anything to get inside the group and train. He needs it, and he will eventually get his revenge. Although the last three days spent sitting in front of the door of the group’s house, receiving all kind of disturbing insults and jabs from the people passing by him and being mercilessly ignored the rest of the time, would usually make for a rethinking of strategy._

_“I’m not going anywhere. I want to stay here.” He ends up saying._

_The man knocks him hard on the head, making his ears ring a bit, and then spats out: “You annoying wimp! We’ve no need for a kid like you on the group. Why would we keep you? The only reason you’re still alive and kicking is ‘cause of the boss’s orders. Why can’t you be grateful you were saved and get the fuck out?” But Thorfinn stays still, not listening. He’s more worried about passing out from hunger than from what these people could do to him. The man gets bored and leaves him alone after a minute, but not before spitting at his face. Thorfinn tries to dodge but the spit falls in his collarbone instead. Tired, he rubs his shirt on it, trying to clean himself a bit, but his shirt is still soaked from when two members threw a beer at him. He lays down on the floor, the tiredness oveerpowering his will to stay alert. After two hours, Thorfinn’s silent moping ends abruptly as he is met face to face with none other than Askeladd. The man is looking at him with a playful look in his eyes, which makes Torfinn’s insides twist a little._

_“Hey kiddo, what’s up? Are you comfy? Do you want me to bring you a blanky and a glass of hot milk?” Askeladd sits besides Thorfinn and takes out a cigarette that smells more of cinnamon than tobacco. He exhales a big breath of beige smoke and Thorfinn thinks he can see it making the form of a wolf. “What do you really want?” asks Askeladd, seeing that Thorfinn wasn’t going to start talking on his own. He doesn’t wait too long to answer. “I want to become a member.”_

_“Nope,” He says, accentuating the ‘p’, “you don’t want to become a member. Why would you? That’s nonsense.” Askeladd takes a pause to get to the cigarette again. He continues. “Do you want me to kill you?” Thorfinn shakes his head slowly, without looking at him. “Do you want to kill me then?” The boy looks up, then, right into Askeladd’s eyes. “ Do you want to kill all of us? And how the fuck do you plan on doing that? Man... Fine, let’s recap: You’re a recently orphaned, malnourished, stupid and temperamental child. You don’t know how to fight, or how to do anything at all, in fact. You don’t have any money, or influences or whatever. To sum up, you are nothing. And, with this in mind, you’re asking me to take you in the group, feed you, raise you, train you, etc, etc... Just so you can kill us when you grow up?” This time the smoke fills Thorfinn’s nose, but not in an unpleasant way. The brownish color and cinnamon smell make it feel like magic, a spell, somehow filling him with determination. “I’ll do anything if you let me stay here. And when I become strong enough, I will slaughter all of you. Or are you scared that I’ll succeed if you let me stay here?”_

_The seriousness of Thorfinn’s little speech is brutally murdered by his stomach making noises of protest with the loudness of a truck._

_“PFFFFFFFTTTTHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OH MY! Comedy gold.” Thorfinn wants to dig a hole on the cement with his bare hands and crawl in there for eternity, but he doesn’t, blushing quietly. “Okay... Well damn, that was fun. Maybe it would be fun to have you around... Heh. So... you’ll do anything, you say? This is not an orphanage, unfortunately for you, and nothing is for free. If you want food, you’ll earn it, if you want training, you’ll find someone willing to teach you, If you want a place to sleep, you’ll have to look for it yourself. I’ll give you jobs now and then, and whether you stay or not will depend entirely on how you deal with them.”_

_Thorfinn is caught off guard. Did this man just say that he could stay? Just asking of him to fulfil some errands? He stares blankly at the man, wondering if this was a trap, when he’s brought back to reality by said man speaking again. “You’re hungry, so come with me.” And he gets up, not waiting for Thorfinn before ascending the front steps and entering the house. Thorfinn follows behind, still wary but with a newfound hope growing inside him._

 

_...._

 

_There is a puppy in front of him. It looks like a Labrador, but smaller. Its ears are perked and it bounces in place, waiting for affection and petting. The thing in Thorfinn’s right hand weights too much, his fingers tremble._

_“It’s really simple, kid. You shoot the pup, you eat. You don’t shoot the pup, you don’t eat, so you die. There’s really not much of a choice, and I’m getting tired of waiting.”_

_Thorfinn shakes his head energetically from side to side. He doesn’t even lift his right arm from its position next to his hips. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t, not this._

_“You said you’d do anything to stay, and I said you would earn your food. Now, you wanted to become a member of my group, my very criminal, very gory, also very fun group, and you struggle to kill a small dog? Hell, you want to kill me, so does this make me easier to kill than a fucking puppy? Fuck you.”_

_“Why- Why do you want to kill it?” Thorfinn tries to say, but his voice is light and shaky, so the phrase gets a bit strange midsentence._

_“First rule of my club, ‘The ´why´s don’t matter, ever’ so get on with it or get out of here right now because it’s starting to get less funny putting up with you.”_

_Thorfinn can’t do this, not to an innocent puppy, but then, what did he think he would be doing if he joined the group? Soon enough he would be killing people, like they did, some innocent, some of them not so much, but still. He has to do this. There is no other way, no other path to walk. The options are to kill or to die. And that’s going to be his world from today on. No, no, no, no, he can’t. He’s not a murderer. He’s not the kind of scum that murders innocent animals, not like these criminals. What would his father think... His father... And with that he realizes, he isn’t doing this for himself. This revenge, it isn’t for him, he doesn’t deserve it. It’s for his father. All along, it was all for his father. He’s the one that deserves revenge. And he’s set on following this path, for him, whatever the costs. So, he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and lifts his arm._

_Three hours later he’s sitting in a small table with four chairs. The table is at the left side of a really big room, which is used for the group’s meals. The walls are covered in white and blue wallpaper, the ceiling really high above his head. Next to his table is a bigger one, the kind that’s used in weddings and big celebrations. All the people present at the time have come to have dinner with everyone, and are enjoying a few drinks before the food arrives. Like this, drinking, smoking... Sitting on the big table, they seem almost normal people. The kitchen is at the end of the room, so the smell of food reaches him and makes him drool uncontrollably. After what feels like an hour and was actually no more than 15 minutes, someone brings Thorfinn his food. He can’t believe he actually spent three days without eating anything. His stomach hurts too much and his bones are visible on his pale skin. The rich aroma surrounds him, anticipation eating at his nerves, and when the plate of food is left in front of him, he abruptly loses the feeling of hunger that was consuming him, and instead, he feels too full now. He has too much and he needs to get some of it outside of his system. He wants to throw up. The meal had looked like normal roasted meat from afar, but this close, Thorfinn can easily see the differences. It’s the puppy. The little dog he managed to kill in the end, having a breakdown afterwards. And now that puppy was given to him as food. He trembles in his seat, unable to look at it any longer, and turns his head to the left, spotting two people watching him intently. One of them is Askeladd, presiding the table with a flask with an unknown drink in his hand, and next to him is a bulky man with dark hair. They’re waiting for his reaction, he thinks, as he turns back to the food in front of him. His stomach protesting once again about the lack of calories, and he doesn’t wait anymore. He closes his eyes as a few tears fall down his hollow cheeks and takes a bite. The taste is horrible, like putrid fish. It’s scarring. It reminds Thorfinn of burned bodies, a big fire. It burns his body, his heart. The taste is so wrong and-_

He awakens with a start. Distantly, he knows he’s shouting. He feels the vibrations of his vocal cords on his raw throat. Someone is grabbing him from the front, pressing fingers on his arms and chest, gently shaking him. Or maybe he’s the one making the swaying motions, he can’t be sure. Finally, he opens his eyes at the same time he tunes in his ears.

“-’re okay. It’s fine. Everyhting’s fine. You’re alright, you’re safe. I’m with you. It’s okay.”

“Wha-“

“Hey, stay still, you’re still recovering buddy.”

Thorfinn stays still, but not because he was told to. He looks around at the room he’s currently in. A bedroom, unfamiliar. There is an also unfamiliar man leaning over him, grabbing him, pinning him in place with gentle but firm hands. They are really big hands, he notices. He remembers suddenly the day before with vivid images. The total annihilation of the group, meeting Hild, getting shot, lying on the street...

“Hey, hey, stay with me. It’s alright, you’re safe. Just breathe.”

Thorfinn forces his body to listen, taking deep breaths and slowing down his breathing rhythm. He knows he’s getting oxygen to his brain, but it doesn’t register. His mind keeps wandering from the past to the present and vice versa. His thoughts are scrambled. The feeling is like trying to run below the water. Slow, painfully so, and hard. He gets that things are happening in the present, but he doesn’t really feel them. He knows he’s being stroked gently, noticing when the movement pulls at the tangles in his hair, but that’s about it.

“Okay... that’s right. You’re doing well. That’s good. How are you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere?”

The voice finally makes sense, or at least, as much as he can get right now. This man is the one who found him on the street. He really didn’t call an ambulance. This is probably his home.

“Kid?” He’s waiting for a response, and Thorfinn is not communicative right now. He swallows; easing the roughness of his throat a little, but at the end chooses just nodding. He finds talking taking way too much effort right now.

“Good, tell me if something hurts or if you need anything. Your injury was bad, but luckily there was just a lot of bleeding but not any damage to organs or anything important. I just had to stop your bleeding, patch you up, and in two or three weeks you’ll be fine.” The man lets go of Thorfinn, then, and settles down on a chair besides the bed.

“So... What’s your name?”

The man’s words are met with silence but he doesn’t seem faced.

“Man.. I was really freaking out yesterday. Can you imagine? Just taking out the trash and suddenly there’s a teenager lying on the floor, covered in blood. I thought I was having hallucinations because a student slipped drugs in my tea or something. It’s happened once already and let me tell you that- Aaaaand I’m blabbing, sorry. I’m just really nervous right now because? I found a teenager shot to death in front of my house? And took him home without contacting the police? And now you are here aaand I’m honestly the worst at this.” He takes a deep breath, then. “Okay, I’m Einar and you?”

“Thorfinn” He doesn’t see any problem with telling him his name at this point.

“Thor- Thorfinn? What kind of name is that? Are you from Europe or something?” After Thorfinn continues to look at him with a lost look on his face for almost 5 minutes, he carries on. “Nevermind, stupid question. Here. “He hands Thorfinn a big steaming cup that for Thorfinn smells like grandma hugs and warm weather. “This is for you. You must be a bit cold and I’m sure your throat hurts a little so drink it slowly.” Thorfinn does as told and drinks from the hot cup, burning his lips until they turn red but not caring. He feels more like a robot, now that he’s playing attention to the man’s words. Trusting his brain right now was problematic, too many emotions and memories overwhelming him. It was easier to just listen to this man, he seemed more steady than himself, at least.

The drink is so warm it raises Thorfinn’s temperature from within. His throat hurts a little, but it is greatly placated by the sweetness and softness of the drink. “It’s hot chocolate with milk and sugar. I didn’t know if you would like it but it’s the most comforting drink I could think of.” Says Einar, who is now watching Thorfinn’s face intensely, searching for little movements that would mean emotions. But the boy doesn’t give any indication that he has heard him. Instead, he's focusing on the flavours dancing on his mouth, caressing his tongue with an almost forgotten embrace. He can’t believe something this pure could exist. The sensations caused by the drink almost drowning his inner thoughts. The contrast between the bitter chocolate and the sweet milk and sugar causing his mind to black out a little in pleasure. Okay, maybe it was a bit exaggerated, but Thorfinn was unconsciously searching for a means of escaping his mind, and focusing on his senses was one of them. The warm tingles wander over his skin, causing him goosebumps, but at last, he finishes the drink. Too soon.

“How about taking a bath now?" He says as if sensing the boy's disappointment. "That way you’ll get warm again, and I can change your bandages and clothes. Yes, that’d be good.” And before Thorfinn can even start the motion of nodding, Einar gets up and goes out of the room, only to appear 5 minutes later with a handful of clothes and white gauze on his arms. “Let’s get you cleaned up! Can you get up on your own?” Thorfinn answers his question by getting up without any problem. He was used to it, needing to move even when he was in pain. “Wow... okay, take it easy there buddy. Follow me.” And so the boy did. They arrive at the bathroom after 3 whole minutes because Einar dropped the gauze four times, and had to get down to pick them up because ‘Thorfinn would get his stitches loose if he bent down to do it’. The bathroom is really nice. It is kind of small, but it’s decorated with warm yellow colors instead of the usual blue. The bath is almost full by now, so Einar closes the tap and proceeds to prepare towels. “I would lend you some of my bath bombs but I don’t think they would be good for your injuries...” The stare Thorfinn gives him must be more unnerving than the previous one because he falters and corrects. “I mean, I’m not a scientist but they can wait until you’re healed, and then you can choose the one you like most and use it, okay?” Thorfinn doesn’t have the energy to tell him that he has no idea what bath bombs are, but they sound kind of dangerous, so he’s glad he won’t have one now.

“Right, you can get in the bath now. Careful with your stitches.” Einar helps Thorfinn with his clothes, because they are sticky and hard with congealed blood and also so as to not jostle his injuries. Thorfinn gets into the bath, then, going immediately for covering himself up to his neck with the warm water, but the water isn’t actually warm.

In fact, the water is freezing cold. Colder than Alaska.

Thorfinn goes very stiff, his body tensing with the shock.

“What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”

The blonde boy begins trembling, his teeth chattering hard. He can’t move. That seems to finally make the connections happen in Einar’s brain, because he hurries to touch the water.

“OH MY GOSH! I’M SO SORRY! OH MY GOSH YOU’RE FREEZING! I’M SORRY!” He then proceeds to get Thorfinn out of the water and cover him with every towel available, and there are a lot of towels available.

“Oh my gosh... I must have opened the tap on the cold side without realising... I am SO sorry.”

The human burrito that is now Thorfinn glares a bit at the man, unable to stop trembling, but Einar’s frantic agitated moves make Thorfinn believe it really was an accident.

“Okay, don’t worry; I’ll get you a new hot bath in an instant. The hottest bath, you’ll see. And then I’ll make you a hundred hot chocolates, two hundred. It’s okay. Aaaah... why am I so clumsy... sigh. I really am sorry though.” The boy touches lightly the man’s arm, trying to convey that it’s fine before Einar drowns in guilt. Einar goes very still then, and he smiles the biggest grin he can manage before getting to work on emptying the bath and preparing a new one. Thorfinn has the feeling that a lot of disasters are sure to come next, but he can’t worry about them now, wrapped in towels and listening to Einar hum a soft tune next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ufff...  
> Finally... an update... *I say, emerging from my coffin, covered in spider webs*  
> So, what did you think? Did it make sense? At this point I'm just hoping that the story is entertaining enough. But enough of this crap. Thank you for reading, for real. If you enjoyed it even a little, then it was worth it. Now the action is going to go slower. I'm concentrating more on thoughts and feelings, rather than unleashing the plot into a wild race.  
> (The song at the beginning is Indian Lakes - I don't know you )


	4. Brother and Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorfinn is emo and Gudrid makes an appearence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OwO whats this?  
> ...  
> *coughs* sorry  
> Here is chapter four. Not much action, just setting the premises of the story. Enjoy!

Bend your chest open so I can reach your heart  
I need to get inside, or I'll start a war  
Wanna look at the pieces that make you who you are  
I wanna build you up and pick you apart  
  
Let me see the dark sides as well as the bright  
I'm gonna love you inside out  
I'm gonna love you inside out

...

I'm gonna pick your brain and get to know your thoughts

So I can read your mind when you don't wanna talk

And can I touch your face before you go

I collect your scales but you don't have to know

 

 

Morning comes too slow for the two of them. Thorfinn couldn’t sleep, or more like he didn’t want to. He was sure that if he slept even a little his dreams would be too much for him, so he chose not to even try. As for Einar, he was still worried about him, about his situation, so he spent the entire night looking after him while he pretended to sleep. After all, he still thinks Thorfinn is a minor, no older than sixteen. What he cares more about is his family’s affair. If Thorfinn doesn’t have a good family, he must contact the authorities. But, if he actually has a good family, they must be worried about him right now. The fact that Thorfinn has spoken a total of two or three words since he woke up doesn’t help matters.

So here they are now, Einar making breakfast while thinking of his next course of action and Thorfinn sitting on the sofa, thinking about how to discreetly get out of the house and run as far away as possible. The taller man is frying some eggs in the kitchen. He usually wouldn’t have such a breakfast, preferring a simple coffee cup to boost his brain. The only reason he’s cooking is because of his guest, so, when he accidentally breaks the egg yolks in all of them, it comes as no surprise. The silence in the apartment becomes a bit uncomfortable for him after a while.

“So, how was sleep? Did your wound hurt too much?”

 Reluctantly, Thorfinn answers with a quiet “Fine.” The small boy would rather not start conversation with this strange person but even he would try to act polite with the man that saved his life. Grateful or not.

“Hmm I’m glad to hear that. I’m giving you another painkiller with breakfast so it should gradually feel better. Anyway, do you like eggs?”

There is a pause before Thorfinn turns his head slowly to look the man in the eyes, not saying anything.

“Rrrright, that was a stupid question (again) do you want to eat there or do you want me to set it on the kitchen?”

The blond wouldn’t admit it if he was dying but the bullet wound really hurts when he moves. The day before it was more of a mild pain but today his side feels on fire. He doesn’t hesitate when he says “Here.”

“That’s fine. I’ll take it right away.” The last part is said with a bit of a musical rhythm. Nobody comments on that. After serving the eggs in the plates and leaving them on the small table in front of the couch, he manages not to spill anything and brings two cups too, one full of warm coffee and the other of warm chocolate. After everything is set, Einar sits on a comfortable looking chair and begins scrambling his eggs. Thorfinn bends over and reaches for the cup, grimacing as it upsets his injury.

Einar is worried. He doesn’t try to start an awkward conversation this time; his mind is occupied with more important matters.  One being what the heck is he going to do now that the situation has stabilized. Should he call the police, then? That would be a bad idea, no matter how many times he considers that. This late in the game he can’t leave this responsibility to someone else like it’s a problem he didn’t ask for. So, call his sister, maybe? She was always the voice of reason when they lived together, negotiating with their parents and resolving conflicts here and there. She will definitely be of help. Having come to a decision, they finish their breakfast on silence and Einar takes the dishes to the sink.

“I’m going outside for a minute, will you be okay here?” He asks from the door, phone in hand.

A muffled “I’m fine.” resonates from the living room, as if Thorfinn has his face attached to a pillow. He has, but Einar can’t see that.

Now, Einar stands outside of his apartment door, staring at his phone with eyes that say “please don’t be ‘mistake number 99999’”. He takes a strong gulp of air and dials the dreadful number. It takes only a few beeps until someone else’s voice can be heard from the device.

“Are you dead?”

“What?”

“Tch, that means no, uh.”

“Gudrid...”

“Fine, fine, take a joke... What’s wrong? It’s not like you to call me out of nowhere.”

“I... may have a bit of a situation at home.”

“Continue.”

“Well... I have an injured occupant and-“

“Did you bring home another stray cat? Einar... you know you’re allergic. You can’t keep bringing them and then dumping them on me because you get so sick you have to skip work.”

“Gudrid stop! It isn’t a cat. It’s... a person.”

“... A person.”

“Yes, I- I’m not sure what to do right now.”

“Have you tried a hospital?”

“That’s not an option. You see, he... he was shot. I found him bleeding out on the street. Also, I think he’s like, sixteen. I patched him up, more or less. He's not dying.”

“Okay, okay. Gang fight?”

“I have no idea, but most likely, yes.”

“I’m going right now.”

“No, wait, I didn’t call because I wanted you to come.”

“No, I’m coming, period.” And then she hangs the phone.

Einar has approximately 15 minutes to explain to Thorfinn that his savage sister is on her way.

 

Meanwhile, Thorfinn was scared. Well, not scared, more like, stressed. Einar has been out for ten minutes now. He could see him taking his phone when he got out, but that could mean many things. For once, he could be calling the police. But then, why hadn’t he called them earlier? Why would he wait until the next morning to do that? _He could have thought better about what he did yesterday..._  If the police came, he had to run away. He can’t be found now, but where will he go? He has nothing left. What was he going to do with his life? There’s not a single thing left on his to-do list. His revenge goal is useless now. He doesn’t want to follow that trail of thought so he tries to think about other things. It doesn’t work. _I should have died... there’s nothing for me here now. What, should I look for a job? And where would I live? It’s... It’s impossible, starting again, a new life. There’s too much wrong with me, with the things I’ve done._

Before Thorfinn’s ideas get more drastic, the door opens and Einar enters the house accompanied by a gust of cold winter air. The man turns to close the door and stares at it while he locks his phone. He stays like that for a couple of minutes. Then, he turns towards the living room and sits in the chair directly in front of Thorfinn.

“So, I’m going to be completely honest with you now, okay Thorfinn? I had no idea what to do about you now so I ended up calling my sister for advice. When I told her our situation” _Our situation,_ Thorfinn repeats in his head. “She said she was coming over. She’s energetic and stubborn and wouldn’t listen to me. So, just letting you know, she’s a bit harsh, and she’ll probably want to interrogate you like an old-school detective, but don’t worry! She’s really nice deep down and I trust her with my life, and now yours, too, it seems.”

Thorfinn thinks he hears Einar say “tehee” after he finishes but surely it was just his imagination. Time to focus on the main problems. Another person was going to probe at him, seems like more expertly than this man. Seeking answers for questions he didn’t want to even think about. What could he say? The truth was out of the question. Telling this people that he was an ex-assassin working for the mafia would no doubt end up with him on the run with the police. And also he... really didn’t want to disappoint Einar. He just met the man yesterday but he’s the nicest person he’s met since he was a kid. It’s better if he doesn’t make him feel stupid about taking a murderer into his home.

“Well, I say that I don’t know what to do with you but I mean that I don’t know how to help you. You’re probably in trouble with someone right? It didn’t look like an accident to me.”

“It wasn’t.” Says Thorfinn, aware that he has to give some kind of answer if he wants to get out of this without much fuss, but not wanting to give away too much.

“Okay, we’ll talk about that. I just want you to know that you can stay here until you’re healed and safe. I have enough space, I live alone and I can take care of you. So, if you have nowhere else to go...”

“I..” Thorfinn’s answer is interrupted by the sound of footsteps near the door, followed by two strong knocks.

“Einar! It’s freezing!”

The man hurriedly gets up, hitting his knee with the coffee table but acting as if nothing happened. “I’m going!”

Thorfinn tries not to think about family relationships. Usually he didn’t mind seeing other people’s familial interactions. It was too long ago that he lost his own family, the wounds were scarred enough already. But now, he’s feeling strangely vulnerable. _Why am I feeling like this while listening to Einar and his sister?_ He can’t get a grip on his emotions. He noticed he was becoming somewhat clingy with this man, too soon. His self-preservation instincts were running low. There was something strange in him, the sensation of wanting to be protected, wanting to be cared for. These were foreign feelings for him, uncalled for, unnecessary. He never needed that kind of attention, he was never that weak. He could take care of himself. And now, he doesn’t deserve any of it. He doesn’t deserve nice things, he deserves punishment, retribution. He should be locked up in a cell, rotting, or killed. He shouldn’t be getting nice baths and hot drinks when he had that many people’s deaths on his shoulders.

He’s so occupied by his depressing thoughts that he doesn’t notice the young woman with charcoal hair tied in a big side braid enter the living room until she sits in the chair directly in front of him.

“Hello there.” She says while looking at him directly. Sounds can be heard from the kitchen, so he supposes Einar must be there, leaving him alone to confront this strange woman.

“Hi.” He says, when nothing else comes to mind.

“I’m Gudrid, Einar’s sister.”

Thorfinn doesn’t answer that and chooses instead to stare at the interesting pattern of the carpet. Gudrid doesn’t seem in a hurry to get answers so she just sits more comfortably on the chair and looks at her phone. After a minute or two, Einar appears from the kitchen with a cup of warm coffee and sets it in front of Gudrid. Seeing as his chair is occupied right now, he sits next to Thorfinn on the sofa. When the boy doesn’t complain or move away, he relaxes. Thorfinn is busy thinking about some fictional story that would match his situation from when they interrogate him and can’t be bothered by Einar sitting right next to him, their legs almost touching.

“Are you a kid?” Gudrid asks suddenly.

Thorfinn answers automatically, because _what._ “No.”

“I thought so” She says, turning to Einar “He has a petite body and baby face but his eyes look older. He’s not a minor.” _Oh, so Einar thought I was a kid... That explains a lot._

“What? But then...” Einar is stunned, big brown eyes turning to the boy next to him.

Gudrid never has a problem with interrupting his stuttering brother, so she continues. “How old are you?”

“19... I think.” _This much information is okay, right?_

“Well, that’s still young, but not still-in-highschool-young.” She says.

“That... that’s good, I guess. I didn’t want to think of a situation in which a teenager would be shot on the street.” Two pairs of eyes looked at Einar with a mix between confused and a bit scared. Thorfinn, because Einar told his sister about how he got injured, and Gudrid because his brother was an idiot. “Ah! Not that an adult is more likely to get shot on the street!” He says, apologetic.

Gudrid turns to Thorfinn. “That’s right, are you going to explain about that?”

Thorfinn hesitates “hmm... I was attacked.”

 “Were you in a gang fight?”

“No.”

“Do you remember who shot you? Did you know them?”

“I- I don’t remember.”

Sharp eyes study his face for a moment. “Is that so...”

The man interrupts. “Do you want me to call your family? I don’t know why I didn’t ask that in the beginning but... Sorry, because you didn’t say anything I assumed you didn’t want to.”

“I don’t have any family.” The boy says, a little too fast.

“Oh, sorry, I- I didn’t mean to-“

“Then where were you staying? Did you live by yourself?” The woman is taking sips of her coffee and Thorfinn notices she has rough but slender hands with perfect nails. He really doesn’t know what to say. He can’t make up an apartment because they’ll want to go there. Finally, he settles for the easiest answer: “With a friend.”

“Will that friend know how to take care of your wound?”

“No.”

A change of topic. “Are you a student or do you have a job?”

“I had a job.”

She sighs. “Answer me honestly, okay? If you left now, where would you go?”

“Somewhere.”

Einar includes himself in the conversation again. “You don’t have anywhere to go?!”

“No.” Then Thorfinn thinks better of it. “Maybe.”

“It’s fine!” Einar is suddenly a little too close; his breath is hot when he speaks directly to Thorfinn, sitting at his side. “You can stay here even after you’ve healed. You can stay here as long as you need, or want.”

“Wait, Einar, don’t go that far yet. We don’t know him at all. But, that can be arranged.” Gudrid’s mouth turns into a sharp grin and her eyes shine with the living room’s lights when she looks up. “We can get to know you better in the time it takes for your wound to heal, and then, if you still want to stay, I could give you work at my restaurant.”

“Wow sis... That’s... That’s really nice of you. How do you feel about that Thorfinn? Do you want to stay here?”

Does he want to stay here? Thorfinn, a murderer, a disappointment to his family, damaged. It could get dangerous, for him, staying right were he was shot. There could still be people out there looking for him. He made a lot of enemies as a bullet for the mafia. He could drag these innocent people into danger without meaning to. And what would he do here? Just live merrily and see how the days pass without a care in the world? Did he even know how to do that? How to live a normal life? He didn’t. He only knew how to fight, how to steal, how to kill. He should definitely leave this place. Einar and his sister would be better off without having to deal with a monster in their home. But also...

It was nice, having a warm breakfast prepared for him. It had been so long since he was treated like a normal person and not like a street dog. And after everything that happened to him, all the suffering, all the sleepless nights. Being tortured and humiliated for fun or envy was his routine growing up. Maybe he really did deserve this? Maybe this situation was brought upon him because he deserved a rest, a chance at redemption. To know what it is to live a normal life and not live in constant fear of the dark. Maybe, just maybe, he could take this chance to give the world something better than death. Maybe just to make this man that saved him just a bit happier.

“I want to stay here.” He whispers with his head low. His eyes are glassy with unshed tears but the people with him pretend not to notice his wavering voice. Einar puts his hand on Thorfinn’s arm and gives it a strong squeeze. An innocent movement that would’ve made him feel threatened before, but makes him feel safe this time. Gudrid gets up. “I should go now. It was nice to meet you, Thorfinn, and I trust that you two will get along really well. I’ll come back in a couple of days to see how you’re doing.” She winks at him then, and Thorfinn sees it because he lifted his head already. “And I hope that you’re more communicative by then.”

She drinks her coffee in one big gulp and leaves without waiting to see the reactions of both men and then they're left alone again. Both sit in the sofa of the living room, suddenly too aware of their proximity. Thorfinn is still embarrassed about his confession of wanting to stay so he doesn’t say anything. Einar feels really awkward about what to do now so he says whatever passes through his head at this moment.

“Want to watch a movie?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand there's another chapter. Took a while to finish because I'm incorrigible. Again, thank you very much for reading! I hope their interactions don't seem too artificial, but I guess it's fine like this. I wish I could write Gudrid better because she's one of my faves and I love her character a lot. Of course that means she will be making A LOT of appearances. Song is The Chainsmokers - Inside Out.  
> Happy holidays!


	5. Disney and Dreamworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small bloody incident takes place but it was me,  
> the setting for a series of somewhat amusing situations involving animation films.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello~  
> It's me~  
> It's been two months but here I am. I suddenly got inspired (very rare) and wrote three chapters in a row. I'll be uploading them all along the month at different days. This one is not very long. In other news, I'm really happy about the kudos and comments and whenever I look at them, one of the small goblins that live in my tiny heart does a cheery twirl as celebration. Thank you.  
> Here's chapter 5!!! enjoy!!!

Hold your horses, hold, hold the border

Don't come closer, don't, don't let go of me

I'm like porcelain

When you're with me, all, all I know is

just about a million ways to harm you

all the things I shouldn't say

are the things that, when I want to make you happy, come out of me

...

We have got the power of destruction

You can always let it fall

But when we try to work on something solid, it is too God damn hard

 

Give it a thought

It takes a lot

to trust that someone else will catch my fall

 It takes a lifetime

breaking goes fast

when everything that matters is made of glass

...

I'm like porcelain

I'm like porcelain

 

Maybe choosing _Bambi_ as a nice Disney movie to watch and pass the time wasn’t the best idea. In fact, it proved to be the worst idea ever. Einar and Thorfinn were both sitting in front of the TV; Thorfinn wrapped inside a fluffy yellow blanket, with his feet up on the sofa with him and his chin resting on top of his knees. It was comfortable, despite appearances.  Einar was just beside him, his legs sprawled on the floor underneath the coffee table and his arms crossed, hugging himself. At first it was nice, the movie giving off a happy and innocent atmosphere to the room. Then Bambi’s mother died and the sound of guns came with it. Suddenly Thorfinn wasn’t on Einar’s living room, but inside a dark and humid room. There was a young woman tied to a chair in the middle, the trembling of her limbs made small scraping sounds when it shook the metal chair against the floor.

“This is a really important moment for you, Thorfinn. Your first kill has to be precise and clean, you don’t want her to suffer more than necessary.” said Canute right next to him. Canute was the nicest of his trainers but his cool attitude still spooked him. The gun in his hand was cold but also sleek and elegant. He was already used to the weight and form of it in both his hands. His arm lifted and the gun pointed to the middle of her forehead -A really loud sound- He shot three times when he should have made a single shot. The first one made it to her mouth, shattering teeth on its way and spraying the pieces everywhere. The second one was dead center and actually went through her brain. It made the wall behind look like a crimson orchid was painted on it. The third one just made a dent on the back of the chair, because the woman had already bent forward. He believed himself to be prepared; sure it wouldn’t be a big deal. Already two years after they accepted him in the group he couldn’t count with his hands the amount of animal blood he had on them and even more were the unfortunate people he had seen die before his eyes. But his hand had trembled slightly, at the last second.  He was going to be punished again, that was for sure. He could already feel the strength of Canute’s anger about making unnecessary messes. The gun fell from his hand and clanked on the metal floo-

“THORFINN! HEY! IT’S ME!”

Just like that, the images stopped. The first thing he noticed was the smell of blood. Then came the light and the softness of a blanket restraining him.  Then he opened his eyes.

Einar was in front of him, crouched on the floor and with his hands reaching at him but not touching, almost afraid of doing so. His right leg, he noticed, had some small cuts that were bleeding lazily into his pants. Thorfinn then looked at himself. He was on the floor, surrounded by glass shards. Some of them had pierced him in the butt and the back of his legs and he was drenching the yellow blanket with the dripping red of his blood. He wasn’t on _that_ room, he was on Einar’s home.

“A-are you with me now? It’s fine, it’s fine. Just... let me help you? I just want to get you out of there and treat your wounds. You’re safe.” Einar was using the softest voice and talking in calm, even tones. “You suddenly jumped from the sofa but because you were warped in the blanket you tripped and fell on your butt onto the coffee table, and it shattered. It’s not your fault I- I wasn’t thinking at all, choosing this movie after you nearly died of a shot... What matters is that we take care of you right now, Can you take my hand, please?”

Thorfinn was overwhelmed. The vivid flashback was still fresh on his mind, leaving him feeling raw, exposed. This hadn’t happened before, having an attack triggered by a gunshot sound. They were part of his everyday life, as usual as the sound of water running from the tap. But now even a children’s movie affected him, he was more sensitive than ever. It was like the layer of indifference protecting his feelings most of his life had shattered with that gunshot wound and he was left with new tender skin, easily hurt. He understood what Einar was saying but his whole body felt like jelly.  He saw Einar’s blood, his own blood, the blood on _that_ wall... “But you’re hurt.”

“It’s fine, Thorfinn, just some small scrapes. You’re more important right now.”

“I hurt you.”

“No, no, come on, don’t. Don’t go there. It wasn’t your fault. It was my fault, I was too careless and I made you have a flashback. But don’t worry, it’s gone now. It won’t happen again. And even if it happens again, I’ll be right there to help you.”

“I-I’m going to hurt you again.” Thorfinn couldn’t keep his fears to himself anymore. He was feeling too drained, too transparent.

“No, you won’t, and that’s that. Now come on, take my hand and get up, you’re bleeding.”

Neither of them noticed the film still running. A lot of time had passed and now the part with the burning forest was playing on the screen. Thorfinn started trembling again. The images of the raging fire consuming the life of the forest took all of his attention without his control. His breaths came as erratic, short puffs that were not near enough to fill his lungs. Einar noticed too late and searched desperately for the remote control. By the time the TV screen was completely black, the blonde was retreating backwards, away from the TV, injuring his left hand with the glass shards. His eyes were unseeing. They looked both disturbed and empty. It wasn’t a complete flashback, like before, but the present and the past were intertwining in his head. It took Einar speaking sweet nothings next to him and then hugging him for nearly half an hour to finally calm Thorfinn enough to take him to his room and lay him on the bed.

 ...

And that takes us to the present. Now Einar is pulling the last shards out of Thorfinn’s ass, as delicately as possible. The smaller man doesn’t appear the least bit embarrassed about being naked with him. It must be because he already had that experience when taking the bath that day. The only sounds are the clicks of the tweezers and the soft breathing of both men, measured and careful, like the silence is a valuable treasure. In the end, it’s Einar who breaks the quiet harmony with his earthy voice.

“I’m done with your butt. Does it hurt?” the redhead has been directly looking at Thorfinn’s behind for 20 minutes for merely medical reasons. But now, after he’s done, the reason becomes the pair of boxers that Thorfinn is currently putting back on. Before, when he was getting clean clothes for Thorfinn he wasn’t thinking about what he chose, just that it had to be more or less the right size. Now, he’s looking straight into his dark past. Thorfinn is wearing one of his old boxers, from the time he was a Naruto fan. The underwear is sasuke themed and the back is just two eyes with the sharingan. The situation is far from funny, with Thorfinn being still a little unsettled from before, but it’s just... funny enough to make it impossible to ignore. Thorfinn doesn’t notice anything weird happening and he speaks before Einar has the chance to embarrass himself.

“I’m fine.”

“Well, that’s debatable, but alright. I’m really, really sorry about before. How about I try to make it up to you with lunch?”

Thorfinn nods with cautiousness. He really doesn’t blame Einar, so receiving compensation seems unnecessary, but if he’s being honest, he’s become really hungry. His stomach clamped after that small panic attack but by now that feeling has gotten overpowered by demanding emptiness.

“Then I’ll just go out to buy groceries or something... I don’t know any recipes so I’ll have to look for something on the net... but then, I don’t really know how to cook that well...” Einar’s eyebrows are wrinkling more with each word.  There’s also fine stubble cupping his face. It makes him look older than the 24 year old he actually is. He’s wearing a faded white shirt under a brown knitted sweater and khaki pants along with a pair of slippers that are just bear faces. He gets up from where he was sitting next to the bed and takes his wallet out from the pocket of a coat that was hanging on the door. After looking through it, he announces “Or I could just order a nice take out? I have enough money anyway. Yeah, I’m doing that, and then I don’t have to leave you alone even for a minute.” He excuses himself and goes on his laptop to look for possible deliveries.

At the same time, the blonde man is trying not to think about the situation that arises now. It isn’t like his butt hurts too much; it’s more of a mild pain that makes sitting uncomfortable. However it’s just uncomfortable enough that he can’t sit again without hissing like an angry cat. The options are limited. He can just lie down on his side on the bed like it’s a divan, but it’ll make him self-conscious of the posture. He could lie on the sofa, but he can’t get to it because the floor is still full of glass shards.  He stands in the middle of the corridor and his pajama pants rub against the XL band-aids all over his ass when he shuffles, hesitant. Thankfully, Einar doesn’t let him wait long.

“What are you doing over there?”

“...The glass...”

“AH! Right, I didn’t clean that yet. Give me a minute. By the way, I didn’t know what you liked most and because this is a special occasion, I ended up ordering from three different places.”

Thorfinn’s reaction is a slight widening of his eyes and a soft grumble from his stomach that’s thankfully soft enough Einar doesn’t notice.

“I went for pizza, hamburgers and Chinese. The pizza is just margarita because maybe too many condiments would be bad for you right now.” His voice travels from the living room now and Thorfinn goes to stand in the entrance of the room. Near enough to show he was listening but far enough he knows he won’t stand in his way.

“I’m... I’m not used to having someone to eat with so I never order much take out. It sounds bad because of the situation that led to this but... I’m actually kind of excited right now. It feels kind of like a sleepover with a friend... Um, sorry, I didn’t want to make you feel like we’re that close too soon. I-“

“Einar!” It’s the first time he says his benefactors name out loud and both of them look equally shocked about it.  At this point Thorfinn won’t stop until he gets his point across sooner better than later; no matter how hard it gets talking honestly. “I don’t mind... so d-don’t apologize.”

“T-that’s fine, I guess.”

After the obligatory awkward silence the only sound is the broom resuming its gathering of all the mess left of the table. Thorfinn’s face has a red tint to it and his heart is beating a bit faster. That was embarrassing, sounded like he liked being called a “friend”. It was the first time that he’s felt something like this in a really long time.

“So... It’s Sunday. That means we have the whole day together to do whatever we want. Sorry to say you have to rest A LOT, at least for a week, so you’ll be spending all your time between the bed and the sofa.”

The prospect is as unappealing to the blonde as running a marathon, but it’s the best he has. There’s a possibility that the moment he steps outside someone will recognize him. The past will catch up and make him pay for his sins, destroy him and drag those near him to the same fate. It’s better that he stays inside for the time being, getting accustomed to a peaceful lifestyle first.

“Lucky for you, I have just the thing for enjoying the sedentary lifestyle.” Einar leaves the cleaning utensils and the trash bag in their place and approaches a series of cabinets below the TV. When the cabinet doors are opened, Thorfinn can see a hundred DVD collections from TV shows and even more movie blurays and DVDs. His socked feet drag softly on the floor and he stands in front of the cabinet, suddenly taller than Einar’s body that’s now sitting on the ground.

“You should choose the film you want to watch while we wait for the food, but no more Disney. Disney betrayed us. Now Dreamworks is going to be our friend.” His hand points at a specific section of the shelves.

He knows what DVDs are but he never got the chance to actually watch films or TV series so he doesn’t recognize any of the titles. Thorfinn touches one of the “dreamworks” –whatever that means- dvds, the one with a green cover. Einar immediately moves his hand away without saying anything, a conflicted look on his face. He thinks he hears him murmur something like “not snek” but he isn’t too sure. Then Thorfinn goes to choose the one with a bee on its cover, and again Einar prevents him from taking it. “Not this one either.” he says, his voice carrying a defeated feeling.  BY this point, the blonde is getting a little frustrated and would have just let Einar choose whatever he wanted, but that seemed like an ungrateful thing to do. Thorfinn was nothing except grateful to the man so he suppresses his urge. That doesn’t mean he won’t get a small revenge one way or another in the near future. In the end he chooses the one on the far left for the sole reason that it has an ugly horse on the cover.

“ _The Road to El Dorado_! That’s one of my favourites! Good choice, Thorfinn. I’ll put it on now and pause it when the food arrives. You get comfortable on the couch.”

The dilemma of the sitting position returns and Thorfinn is suddenly too tired to put his delicate pride above being comfortable.

“Um...my... m-my behind, uh, hurts if I sit...” There, he said it.

“Oh! Oh... right, I see. T-tha’s a problem, yeah.” He pushes one finger in between his eyebrows while he’s thinking. “Well then, you just lie down on the couch and I’ll sit on the seat next to it.”

Thorfinn thinks about telling him that lying down also hurts unless it’s face down but Einar’s brain makes the connection on time.

“Not to worry. I only have to move the sofa to face the TV on its side and then you can watch the film with your head propped by cushions.” And he does just that. Thorfinn spreads himself on it and Einar covers him with a new blanket without a word. This one’s light blue, with a velvety texture. The film starts after Thorfinn has convinced Einar he doesn’t want anything to drink, thank you. Einar is just happy to see Thorfinn speaking more and even making more expressions.

It’s truly a great film, and it shows on their faces. Einar laughs out loud whenever Tulio scolds Miguel, saying that it’s almost like he’s seeing his sister with himself. The fluid songs and the cacophony of colors feel magical to the smaller man, enthralling him. Einar can’t help but notice a little smile pulling at Thorfinn’s lips whenever that small armadillo named Bibo appears on the screen. He makes a mental note to buy an armadillo plush from the internet and then convince Thorfinn that having a comforting object you can physically touch isn’t just a kid’s thing.

Half an hour after the movie starts the doorbell rings and Einar wants nothing but to stay right there, sitting next to Thorfinn and enjoying his quiet but by now surprisingly familiar company. Seeing Einar hesitating about going to open the door, Thorfinn shows him the most intimidating face he can make (right now) supported by his grumbling stomach. Einar takes it as the clue it is and gets up faster than a grandma taking the bus seats. A small tingle of happiness forms inside him because that was without a doubt a sign that Thorfinn was getting at least a bit familiar with him too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song at the beggining is Skott - Porcelain. Sadly those sasuke boxers are not real, but I still cringed a lot while doing the needed research. Thank you for reading!!  
> The next chapters will still be domestic life, with a touch of angst, a pinch of fluff and a spoon of stupid. Stay tuned~


	6. Children and Adults

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into Einar and Gudrid's childhood, from her perspective, which made them who they are today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yello!  
> I have no excuses for this update being so late. Sorry...  
> This chapter demanded I write it and after it popped into my mind, it was impossible to ignore... It's not that much relevant to the actual story, so, if you just want to see Einar and Thorfinn, you can skip it and you won't miss anything major. I just.. wanted this to be a thing, so there it is.  
> PD. the song is: Blonde Redhead - Loved Despite of Great Faults

Child and Adult

 

You will move  
with me, we will  
stay still and  
words will move around us  
Surround us in gold  
and in our world  
we’ll be silent

...

It was a time  
a way of life  
The only secrets  
We talked about  
were all the fears  
in all these years  
we spent together  
  
That you refuse to fade away  
I hide to stay the same  
Where do we go from here  
I don't know...

 

There is a time in everyone’s life where you feel the need to become a hero for someone. When the opportunity of saving someone’s life is suddenly in front of you, and it’s your responsibility to choose, there’s no right or wrong answer. Time slows down, and you make your decision faster than you think possible. In my case, it was when I was just 12 years old. I regret many things in my life, but that’s the only thing I will never regret.

Einar and me, we were born in a well-off family residing in the countryside. Our mother was called Anne and she had long caramel hair as straight as the horizon where it meets the sea. She was strong-willed and liked working in the fields. Our father was called Henir, and he was really shy for a farmer. He enjoyed reading and writing more than anything and he was too clumsy to work on the field and not destroy every delicate sprout so he mostly worked on the more theoretical part of gardening. He studied the soil and the fertilizers, bought the best seeds, talked with the agronomic community of the region and things like that. I was 6 years old when Einar was born. I choose his name. Because he had reddish hair like our mother and was more quiet than usual for a baby, I decided to combine our parent’s names into a new one and they surprisingly liked it. I loved my brother from the moment I first laid eyes on him and as he grew up I loved him more and more. Because the way I showed affection was by lightly bullying him, he became a bit scared of me in the end. One time I left him on the top floor, and because he was scared of the stairs he stayed in his room until he started crying hard enough for our mother to hear him from the garden. Of course, it was totally my fault, but it was amusing to see him intimidated by me and I was too young to realize that intimidation and respect are completely different things.

It happened the fourth afternoon after mum had traveled to the capital because of work. Dad was busy tending to the garden in her place and getting mud all over him so I took Einar to a walk in the forest near our house. There were never any wolves or other dangerous wild animals near the house. Mostly it was inhabited by raccoons, squirrels, toads and the occasional deer. For me, it was the most beautiful place in the world. The trees were leafy enough that only small streaks of light broke through, illuminating the paths just right. Because of the humidity, the ground was covered in moss and ferns that fought hard to hide the stone trail. Many birds called each other loudly and usually drowned our voices while we walked. I had traveled this way thousands of times. Sometimes we saw a strange butterfly or found beautiful flowers blooming and brought them back home. None of us were aware that today was going to be different.  We followed the path until we reached the biggest tree with the intention of trying to conquer it again. Surprisingly Einar was better than me at climbing, so he could reach higher than me, but it still was far from one of its branches. While we were at it, we heard a growl, loud and deep, coming from the northern part of the forest but horribly close. Not a minute passed before a bear came out onto the path and into our view. It was clearly smaller than an adult bear but still bigger than a person. My brother fell from the tree, shocked, and startled the bear that was now eyeing us. We ran. We ran as fast as our legs would let us. Deep down I knew it was the worst thing to do when dealing with predators, but at the time I just thought about saving my life. Einar was small but fast, easily keeping pace with me, but we could hear the sound of rustling leaves and nicks on the stones that the bear following us made. I still can’t believe it didn’t catch up to us; however, we left the forest and reached the house in no time. I picked up my brother and closed the door, irrationally thinking it could follow us inside. Then, I ran upstairs and hid ourselves inside the closet. Einar just kept crying, high-pitched sobs that shook him and made his small lips tremble. Neither of us thought about our father, who was outside in the garden, until we heard the shouting. Then angry growls laced with fear and hostility. We looked at each other and in that moment we noticed that we had led the bear to our house and not warned our dad before hiding. I believed it was entirely my fault and that if dad died it would be because of me. Years later I would come to the realization I could’ve done better, saved the two of them. More years later, I would finally understand the importance of keeping Einar safe and that even If I could have warned dad,  he wouldn’t have had enough time to get home before the creature caught up to him. Nevertheless, I spent many, many years blaming myself to the point I never set foot on a forest again.

While we were inside the closet, a forest patrol that was chasing the bear after it escaped the natural reserve found the scene outside our house and called the police. Later everything I remember about that day comes as a blur. They found us because of Einar’s crying and looked us over for injuries while asking many questions.  Then they called our mom and that was the beginning of what would without a doubt be the worst period of our lives. When mom found out, she broke. Her eyes lost color and her hair would stay always a tangled mess.  When the police told her what I’d explained had happened, she said:

“You are the devil. You took my love from me; you brought the evil into this house.”

The agents said that she was just shocked and that she would be back to normal with time, but that never happened. After that day, she became restless and twitchy. She would still take care of the fields but almost never looked at us in the eyes. I had to take care of Einar because she became most upset with him. Now I know that it was because he reminded her of Henir more than me. Three years passed where I had to take care of Einar on my own, doing everything except cleaning the house or cooking. One day, Anne ended up drinking too much wine on the couch while watching their wedding videos. We hadn’t really seen her cry once since the incident, so we sneaked into the living room to convince Einar she was still our mum deep down. We were murmuring behind the door about getting closer or not when she spoke.

“¿Gudrid? ¿Einar? Come here dears.” It was the first time she was speaking directly to us in months, so we happily obeyed. She wasn’t crying, we noticed, and then she surprisingly cradled us in her arms.

“Listen, you’re just children, but you must realize, ¿right? That it was your fault your daddy died. It was not my fault; I couldn’t have done anything because I was out of town. But you, you could have, you could have done many things to prevent that. So I’m not to blame, you are. Your ruined my life forever, I won’t have any happiness ever again, and it wasn’t even my fault. So, you understand why you can’t be happy either, don’t you? It’s just not fair.”

She said it with such a sweet and motherly voice that on another person it would have sounded as an unfunny joke. The next months were hell for us, but especially for Einar. Mother spent every minute she was inside the house throwing out whatever Einar was playing with, putting too much salt in his food when I wasn’t looking, tearing Einar’s clothes just before he had to go to school and of course telling him every day that he was a murderer and that he deserved the worst things to happen to him. I suffered almost the same things but not even remotely so often and in so much intensity. When I tried to defend Einar, she would go crazy and ask me why I didn’t defend our father when he was suffering too. But even after all that, she never once laid a hand on us; she never used violence with her hands, choosing instead to use her voice. For that reason, when I finally took courage to talk to an adult about this, they didn’t believe me. They saw no physical evidence, no bruises or black eyes, so there was no way I was in an abusive home. They thought it was just teenage rebellion. That I just wanted to get attention because I was missing my dad or that I was just fighting with my mom and wanted to hurt her, and my attitude at high school didn’t help matters. Everyone saw her as the strong and gentle widow that raised her kids and cared for the farm all alone, so it was pointless to try and make them see something when the possibility didn’t even cross their minds.  I felt so alone, hurt, and vulnerable, but still I couldn’t hate my mother. Even after everything she did, the memories of her past self didn’t let me.

Einar was the one suffering the most anyway.  He was a sensitive kid, so he ended up crying more than once every week. At least he had really good friends at school that supported and helped him whenever he needed it. After I told him that the adults wouldn’t help us, he told me to never tell anyone again. He thought our mother didn’t deserve any more unhappiness and refused to get any help. I gave up on that idea too and just focused on protecting Einar the best I could and convincing him he didn’t deserve any of this.  That was our life until the time I’d finish high school came. I wanted to go to university and surprisingly mother agreed to pay for it. The problem was that the nearest university stood 100 km away from our town, so I’d have to move out and live in the city, and that means Einar would be left living alone with mother without my protection. I suspected that was one of the reasons for mother’s compliance, so I hesitated. It was finally Einar the one who convinced me to not let our situation limit our dreams for the future and to pursue what I wanted without regret, after an afternoon of arguing of course.

I moved out and started a career in business management. My dream was to have my own company, but I didn’t have a clear idea about what exactly it would sell. During my years at university I made really good friends, many big mistakes, and one or two nights at the police station. Also, I met the most important person of my life after Einar. I won’t tell how Wide-eyes and I met because it’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. I’ll just say it involved half a pizza and a baby. Wide-eyes was at the time finishing his career in culinary arts and that was just the push I needed to decide on opening a restaurant in the city.

Every now and then I got a visit from Einar. At first I wanted to go back home to see him, but he told me he wanted the excuse to get out and see the city so I never went back again. He always took a bus that took three hours to arrive, so when I went to pick him up he always looked exhausted but happy. The first thing I did is ask how he was and hug him too strongly to be comfortable. I still felt a bit responsible for leaving him alone with mom, but he was all reassurances. That he was getting better at avoiding her, that he spent many nights in one of his friend’s houses or that he learned how to cook for himself, those kinds of things. Sometimes I got tight feelings in my chest, I was so proud of him, I felt really big and really small at the same time.  One day, when we were getting out of a clothing store where I got him a silly cap, he got a determined look on his face and said: “I want to become a teacher. I want to- to help. I want to be the adult that will listen to them, no matter what. The adult that will give them hope.” I was holding my breath at the sincerity and force of his words, and suddenly he wasn’t the little Einar I had to protect, but my brother, my equal.

“It took all of my courage but I talked to mum about it… and she said she wasn’t going to pay for anything because she wanted me to stay. She actually was more afraid of being alone than relieved about me leaving the house…” By this point I understood what Einar was saying, and I didn’t think it twice. I told him, “I will pay for it Einar! You don’t even have to ask! I have to ask the bank for credit to open the restaurant so I just have to ask for a little more. You can even live with us and save living expenses. I’m… I’m so happy for you… I will support you no matter what and you know that, and I know you can do this. Sigh... Don’t make me say embarrassing things all the time!”

Many years passed, and we both reached our goals. Despite the insecurities, the obstacles and our mental health, which was always on the verge of collapse, we did it. I opened my restaurant with the love of my life and soon became famous in the district thanks to his croquettes. After graduating, Einar had to work doing odd jobs in many places until he finally got an offer from a high school in the suburbs.  The school was famous for making many of the teachers quit after a year or two. Mostly because it was the place where many gangsters’ sons and daughters went, it was considered a bad place for beginner teachers but that didn’t stop Einar. I tried to convince him to start at a different city if it was necessary, but his determination ran deep and unwavering. Turns out, he had a gift for dealing with the delinquent types despite his shyness and meekness and soon became a popular icon of respect between the young gangs.

I learned to never underestimate him and to deal with the bizarre things that happened around him with a clear head and a helping hand. Of course, I never expected him to take home a mini tiger version of a person. Nor did I expect the outcome this encounter would have in all of our lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize some things about this story are ridiculously unrealistic, but shhsss  
> Also, sometimes I think I introduce too many heavy themes for a supposedly nice story but then.. It's in my nature. I just want to add depth to the characters and.. this is the easiest way to do it with my limited ability. Before I forget, something I need to clear up: I have not experienced any of the damaging situations in this fic personally, I'm writing them from an outside perspective. So If I make them offending/upsetting I apologize beforehand. I will correct anything possibly problematic as soon as I can.

**Author's Note:**

> If you find any mistakes or if you would add something to the story don't hesitate to let me know on the comments. I really appreciate them. Also, if you want to throw garbage at me or something it is fine too, go ahead, I probably deserve it.


End file.
